I guess this is the third time we are talking about Android 2.4. First, we thought it was Honeycomb. Since H follows G and Gingerbread was Android 2.3, it seemed like the obvious name. But turned out Honeycomb was destined for bigger things. Then we heard a rumor saying 2.4 was actually supposed to be called Ice Cream Sandwich. Not Ice Cream because it looks similar to Frozen Yoghurt but Android 2.2 vs 2.4 don’t. Yeah lame explanation I know.

The latest rumor, however, implies that Android 2.4 will still be Gingerbread. It’s the same as 2.0 and 2.1 are both called Eclair. The 2.4 release will only have minimal extras like support for dual core devices and such. The rumor comes from Viewsonic who is launching their smartphone called ViewPad 4 this April. They say that it runs 2.4 which is still called Gingerbread.

This could also be the reason that leaked Sony Xperia Arc was found running 2.4 but was later dismissed as a misconfiguration error. Oh and that Nexus S running Android 2.4 could be the result of the same as well.

I think Google should stick to Beta and Non-Beta. Releases and naming isn’t their cup of tea.